ramblings

All posts tagged: home office

Happy New Year everyone! Did you have a lovely festive break? I hope so. Have you taken your decorations down yet? Are you looking around the place desperately wishing you had more room? I know I am. But as buying and selling is becoming more and more costly, not to mention slightly impossible given the current climate (**coughs – Brexit**) more of us than ever are extending, expanding and increasing the square footage of our existing homes. A lot of us already have the space we need, we just don’t use it too wisely. Cue the introduction of a recent remote project i’ve been working on: A familiar sight if ever I saw one. The integral garage. The garage with the car parked outside on the drive. Who actually parks their car in garages anymore? Nobody. Apart from my father in law who swears his car will rust and explode if it’s left outside in the mizzle. Anyway – i’m sure the next picture is what a lot of you are more used to seeing in …

As you may remember, i’ve been having some trouble with the ole home office set up. My cheap-y Eiffel inspired chair had outgrown its comfort levels for the sheer amount of time I was now finding myself sat at a desk. Thank you to everyone that left super helpful comments on where to find a decent chair that might float my boat, I really appreciate you taking the time to help me and my crook back out. Whilst I wasn’t averse to buying a decent office chair. Ya know, a really good quality one (the amount of physio i’m currently having would have paid for a set of 4 good office chairs, so one really good one would certainly be a very cost effective move), I was loathed to spend £300, £400, £500 upwards on a chair that I hated the look of. Like this guy… I know it’s shallow to choose form over function, but I can’t help it. The way something looks is as equally important to how something performs for me. And …

I’ve not shared any home updates for ages over on the blog and there have been a goings on at chez Making Spaces. So when the sun decided to join us for the first time in January the other day (for 47 minutes), I had to get my camera out and snap away like a lunatic. As most of you guys know, our house is small, normal, average. A 3 bed semi with no high ceilings, no gorgeous period features or lovely large windows. There are still lots of things i’d love to change and update (some of which will be happening later this year) but for now this is where we are with everything…. Let’s start in the entrance hall. At the end of the hallway now resides a chalkboard wall which is used for messing about, drawing floorplans and Charlie’s notes for his current thesis on the world economy. FINALLY we’ve updated the switches and sockets on the ground floor with more goodies from Dowsing & Reynolds. Our ground floor now matches our …

Here it was pre Loft Extension. In our box room, which was less than 2 x 3m. It was the perfect spot for me to set up Making Spaces HQ. It really wasn’t big enough to be a bedroom. In fact it wasn’t really big enough to warrant its own door, so we took that off over a year ago anyway. Top Tip. If you’ve got a door you never ever close, get rid. Give yourself another square meter of space instead. And a better view. And more natural light. Go on. Our 1960’s, 3 bed-semi had a very traditional layout, pre-build. Our plan was to incorporate the small, box room into the landing area, so it looked something like this: If you’ve been following the build, you may remember we were sacrificing our box room in order to accommodate the staircase of our dreams. You can read more about that over here. The plan was to keep our landing open plan, light, spacious and my office would simply sit exactly where it was before. I do …

I last mentioned “The Pod” in the Peignoir and Worsted reveal post. You can see the flash of Farrow & Ball’s Inchyra Blue through the door at the top of the landing here: The Pod, named mainly due to its size, 1.5m x 1.9m is just about big enough to fit a single bed in. A single bed and one small book. It’s actually used as the home office. Not the most successful one, however: Before It had gotten so cramped the homeowner had set up office-camp on the kitchen table downstairs. Not great when you’re working from home. Seeing your computer all the time means you’re switched on 24/7. I know a few of you out there can relate to that. It’s not good for a healthy work/life balance. Things that needed sorting were: The desk was too deep and interfered with the door architrave. There’s not nearly enough storage but the amount of “stuff” (which needed downsizing). Electrical trunking ran across the top of the desk meaning cables were trailing all over the place. It felt cold …

As you may remember, I’m currently running a project involving magnetic plaster. The decorating, design and finishing for that project begins tomorrow, yes on a Bank Holiday. That’s what you call commitment. Thistle Magnetic Plaster, by British Gypsum’s “Rooms Made For You” I mentioned in that latest post how much I LOVED the colour of this magnetic plaster when dried. A most gorgeous concrete colour with subtle detail and organic nuances in tone. I also mentioned I was going to have one of these magnetic, concrete coloured walls of my very own. My exact words; “It shall be MINE.” I wasn’t lying. I’ve always been drawn to industrial, raw and stripped back design. My dining room wall has been like this for years. I stripped the wallpaper right off, seven months pregnant, a week after moving in… and left it. Much to everyone’s confusion. Now you can easily pick up effect wallpapers that mimic this exact look, I wrote a post about that over here last year. Anyway, back to the magnetic wall…. What I didn’t mention …

I had a consultation yesterday. I’m a little giddy. The homeowner and I have very similar tastes, she loves monochrome, art, industrial, hunting furniture from skips and junk yards and mid-century touches. Her home, quite frankly, is amazing already. But she believes there is room for some creativity, some problem solving and bit of oomph. Let me at ’em. I’ll show you around…. (permission already granted if you were wondering). The living room. Currently in F&B Bone and is calm and neutral. But needs a little kick. The floorboards, picture rail, coving, windows, skirting boards… all original and all amazingly beautiful. Needless to say, they will all be staying put. As will the mid century haberdashery drawers with brass drawer pulls. Yum. Full height windows on two aspects, the second of which I forgot to take a bloomin photo of. Which is kind of a bummer as it’s where some joinery magic may just occur. More on that to follow. Just look at that door! With almost 3m high ceilings, this room can take some serious colour. …

Well I do. Orientated Strand Board is gorgeous. “Oriented Strand Board uses the same system as plywood: opposing-orientation of wood-fibres creates rigidity, allowing a very stiff panel without great weight. Ideal for roofing, wall sheathing, hoardings and flooring.” Jewson Well yeah, it is good for all of those building-y things… but it also makes gorgeous furniture. It’s cheap as chips too. Bonus. Which brings me onto my home office. I’ve been wanting to update it for ages, it was done over a year ago on a complete budget. I used left over paint and bit of old furniture from the loft and it did the job. For a while. But over the past year, i’ve kind of outgrown our third bedroom, it only measuring a minuscule 1.8 x 2.9m. Pretty standard for a “box room” really. Photos – Olly Gordon I also wanted to work facing the window so I felt connected to the outside world. It’s mad how quickly a week can pass before you realise you’ve hardly seen or spoken to anyone when you’ve been …

I was recently set a challenge. Could I update a currently unused third bedroom from a room of storage chaos to a sleek and super cost effective home office? In one day. 8 hours. Let’s have a look-see…. Well yeah, of course I can. They don’t call me Karen “make-over in a day” Knox for nothing you know. Bah! Firstly, this rather large and unnecesary sofa needed to get the hell outta there. The room is about 2x3m so this took up more than a third of much needed space. A “free sofa to anyone that could collect” Gumtree ad worked a treat, giving me a near empty room and someone else a much needed free sofa. Perfik. The CD towers, old cushions and a spare light shade were getting sent to the charity shop but everything else in that room needed a place to live. I had a budget of £150 to spend on the entire room. Eek. I needed to purchase: A desk Filing drawers Drawers for the existing Ikea Kallax unit A chair …

Just in time for the bank holiday trip to Ikea… a little roundup of my favourite pieces from Ikea for SS 2015. Sometimes you just miss the best bits because you’re frantically chasing the wrong child around the store, or wanting to just get to the cafe for your meatballs and cranberry sauce. So here are my faves: ARKELSTORP Desk, black – £135 Black and pine. Winning! KNAGGLIG Storage Box, pine – from £5 Stackable storage. Can’t have too much. Get some. NIPPRIG 2015 Room divider, black – £39 I’ve always wanted a room divide… just need to get a larger house with a big enough room to divide first. Am on it. Ikea are being sneaky sneaky and not showing the table and bench seating on their UK site just yet. Or the matching coffee and side table you can see in the background shot. But they MUST be arriving soon. I like a nice splayed leg I do! UPDATE – It’s the LISABO and it’s £120. Wowzers. Nice price for an ash veneer dining table eh? DALSHULT …